Rain may come after long dry spell, but will it be enough...

1of 3A scarcity of storms this year, combined with a five-inch rain deficit from 2017, has produced abnormally dry conditions in the area. Without substantial rainfall soon, State Climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon said south-central Texas could be in for a drought again.Photo: Bob Owen /San Antonio Express-News

2of 3Counties in almost half of Texas are prohibiting outdoor fires as long as rain in scarce. This map shows bans as of June 13, 2018.Photo: Courtesy Texas A&M Forest Service

3of 3The latest drought map, which is based on conditions as of June 12, 2017, shows the San Antonio area is in the category of either abnormally dry or moderate drought.Photo: U.S. Drought Monitor

At last, storms are in the forecast and could yield enough rain to end one of the driest, and hottest, spells in San Antonio history and even stave off a drought.

Two to 3 inches of rain are likely from Sunday through Wednesday, but some parts of the region could get downpours, producing 6 inches or more, according to National Weather Service forecaster Brett Williams.

A scarcity of storms this year combined with a 5-inch rain deficit from last year have produced abnormally dry conditions in the area. Without substantial rainfall soon, state Climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon said, South-Central Texas could be in for a drought again. Much of the Panhandle already is classified as “exceptionally dry,” the worst ranking.

The possibility of a turn in the weather in the San Antonio area caught the attention of cattle raisers. Faced with little rain this spring and withered hay fields, more ranchers than usual have been selling their herds at Seguin Cattle Co. But on Wednesday, when the forecast stirred hope of storms that could boost the hay supply, company owner Benno Luensmann noticed a shift.

“We’ve been running between 1,000 and 1,200 head of cattle a week here, and this morning, (when) they say we might get 3 inches of rain over the weekend, we’ll probably end up with around 800 head instead of 1,200,” he said Wednesday. “Anticipating the rain — why, if you’ve got grass coming you don’t need to sell.”

The showers, if they materialize, could interrupt a period from April 1 through Wednesday that was the third driest ever, based on more than 130 years of weather records. San Antonio received only 1.33 inches of rain in that time, compared with the normal 7.95. This May was also the third hottest ever.

Williams said that those two conditions — dryness and heat — feed off each other.

“Drier soils heat up quicker, and if you have a drier atmosphere, it’ll heat up quicker. They kind of go hand in hand,” he said. “If it continues to be really dry, we’ll probably continue to see an uptick in our temperatures as well.”

Nielsen-Gammon said in an email that he is optimistic that a combination of tropical moisture from the south — due in part to a weak El Niño effect — and a late-season cold front was a “good recipe for averting a summertime drought.”

The last drought here — one of the worst on record — began in November 2010 and didn’t end until mid-2015. Droughts of varying degrees also occurred in 2005 and 2008, each lasting about two years.

When a drought is paired with heat, as it was from 2010 to 2015, the effects can be more debilitating, according to David Anderson, professor of agribusiness at Texas A&M.

“(Farmers) have even higher crop failure, damage to production and things like that in a hot drought,” he said. “Water evaporates faster, the plants get stressed faster. It’s definitely worse than a cool drought.”

For ranchers, hay has been scarce this year, and some are buckling down for wildfires, according to Bill Hyman, executive director of the Independent Cattlemen’s Association of Texas.

“We still have some hay left over from last year, but it won’t last forever,” Hyman said. “We’re certainly worried about wildfires. We’re seeing those in New Mexico and Colorado, and we already anticipate that being a problem across Texas.”

Anderson also mentioned that the dry conditions this year have harmed farmers who raise nonirrigated cotton and corn.

The weather service’s Williams said it’s a good sign that the rain here is expected to fall over a period of days, as opposed to a concentrated “dump,” making it more likely that the moisture will seep into the ground and not run off.

The forecast of 2 to 3 inches or more extends throughout Bexar County, including the northern portion that is over the recharge zone of the Edwards Aquifer.

The aquifer, which supplies 60 percent of San Antonio’s drinking water in nondrought years, is more than 17 feet below average for this time of year. To conserve water, the Edwards Aquifer Authority required big users to cut pumping by 30 percent, and this week, the city and other utilities declared Stage 2 restrictions, meaning customers have to further limit outdoor water use.

The arid conditions have made it difficult for area residents to keep their landscape plants healthy, said David Rodriguez, a horticulture specialist with AgriLife Extenson in Bexar County.

His main advice: Get an irrigation specialist to audit your irrigation system, and plant with the objective of keeping whatever moisture received in the ground.

“Put ferns and rain gardens in place to keep what rain we do get in,” Rodriguez said. “We should try to incorporate a good landscape or garden mix that has a good amount of very finished, high-quality compost. Working that in with a 2-inch layer of mulch during planting is good.”

He added that the recent dry spell lends more urgency to good planting and watering practices.

Much depends on how much rain comes in the next few days.

“If we get a good rain this weekend, the cattle industry will be back in shape here in Texas,” Seguin Cattle’s Luensmann said. “If it doesn’t rain, why, we’ll be in serious trouble.”